This band will take you into wild and weird journeys through their music and what they’ve to say is really inspiring and interesting.
What means “Electric octopus”? Dale: Electric Octopus is a Psychedelic jam band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Alternatively, it’s a dangerous sea creature that wraps its tentacles around you and gives you minor electric shocks. I dunno man we just came up with the name one day, we had a lot of possibilities but EO is a good one for art etc.
How would you define your music genre and what inspires you the most? Tyrell: I don’t feel as if we really have a specific genre, music, at least for me anyway, comes from feeling and you could never label yourself as having just one feeling. If we tied ourselves down to one specific genre then we would have much less room to explore. It’s like painting, if you only had one color you could still create something great, but having a variety of colours can take it to many more places.
Guy: My view on genres is that they are different energy levels of music that we categorise to explain the feelings we as humans get from them. We all have similar feelings on this matter, we’re aware that what we’re doing is more like a journey, and the best journeys have ups and downs. They make you feel nervous and scared, while also excited and powerful. I suppose what I’m trying to say is along the same lines as Ty, we want to be able to wander anywhere while jamming, meander through different ‘genres’, the skills we pick up are more ways to communicate where we want to go to each other, we all have our own character and this none of us want to let go of. So what I’m trying to say I suppose is that I’m still trying to figure this out, I suppose a good explanation comes from Herbie Hancock talking about Miles Davis. Its on Youtube, if you are a musician id recommend giving it a listen.
Dale: I’m not sure about genre, but the closest thing we have to a genre probably is also the thing that inspires us, just the excitement of feeling music flow through you.
What do you try to express through your music? Tyrell: I would say I find it much easier to express how I feel through playing guitar than I do talking and I think that’s something that’s really become apparent to me since we’ve got this band together. There’s been times where maybe we’ve all had a disagreement about something and there’s a sort of bad vibe in the air, then we’ll have a jam and without having to say any words, everything is resolved and we can move on. It’s a pretty cool thing. It definitely has its downsides too though, especially when it comes to playing live. The vibe of a room or a crowd will ultimately effect how we play, if there’s no connection then it can make it somewhat difficult at times, but it’s all a learning curve and you need the downs with the ups to keep things fresh.
Guy: To be fair if I can communicate the idea of making good out of your mistakes, never stopping, putting your own character into the solutions. Then that’s me. We’re all powerful and I get down when I see people around me believing they’re worth much less than they are because they’ve taken life to seriously. Life’s a thing to have a bit of fun with, tickle it, let it laugh. Being honest though, I’d be an entirely different person if I hadn’t chosen the path I’ve chosen with music. Sometimes, when playing, it feels like tapping into something that has always been here long before we have. In those times it’s more like I’m letting something else express itself through me. That kinda sounds weird, but it’s the best I can do to explain it to you.
Dale: You’re just having fun, then you get a big beautiful idea in your head, when you do, it seems to happen pretty much the same for all of us, and at the same time, then you kinda articulate that thing and it becomes a jam.
What’s the best thing about being a musician? Tyrell: Again, it all comes down to expressing yourself, having the opportunity to truly express yourself and have people connect with and understand it is a really special feeling. I don’t think there’s any better feeling than playing a show and seeing a room full of people completely lost in the sounds that we’re creating, or chatting with people afterwards and hearing how they describe their experience, it’s very rewarding, even though compliments make me feel extremely awkward.
Guy: yeh compliments make me awkward too,
Dale: Doing this kind of thing offers you a chance to have a really unusual experience, you’re traveling all over the place and doing these crazy shows with no real plan beforehand, so it’s inevitably gonna be a mad trip. The best bit is probably on stage or in the studio when it’s absolutely on fire.
What’s your next project?
Tyrell: Electric Octopus is a constant evolution, and with each time we play together, we discover new things. We have a few great shows to finish off 2017, playing along with Naxatras for two shows in the UK and getting the chance to not only see, but to share a stage with the legendary Yawning Man in Belfast in December is going to be incredible! We’ve had such a busy gigging schedule over the last few months, so we’re going to be putting a lot of focus back into some time in the studio and getting some fresh jams out there. We’re also going to be heading out on our first European tour in spring 2018 thanks to Total Volume, which I for one cannot wait for, so there’s a lot of great things on the horizon, just gotta keep doing what we’re doing I guess.
FACEBOOK – @electricoctopusofficial
BANDCAMP – https://electricoctopusofficial.bandcamp.com
INSTAGRAM – @electric_octopus
YOUTUBE – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgnV6PvsMxQV1Vxvtq-gzYw
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